The Hokage
by The Wonk
Summary: I've decided to write a Naruto story. It's a drama, cuz I can't write light hearted humor stories. I don't rightly know what the story's about, but you'll know as soon as I know.


**The Hokage**

**Prologue**

It had been almost ten years since that night – the night she watched the man she loved, the man she still loved, disappear. But wading in the river just a few feet away from her, there he stood. From his appearance, he seemed like any other normal villager. He had on the garb of a fisherman, his hands showing the calluses of his profession. She noticed his skin was also tough and leathery, tanned by the long exposure to the unrelenting sun. But those deep blue eyes were the same. There was no mistaken them. Though his body may have changed over the years, those eyes never could. She had finally found him.

Her search was over.

Kakashi, the Hokage of the Hidden Leaf Village, had gotten word of a man who saved a small hamlet from bandits in the Land of Waves. Such a report would normally have been passed over, but an eye witness account had caught the legendary copy-nin's attention.

"He moved so fast that my eyes couldn't keep up with him. It was like watching a yellow flash of light zooming from one area to the next. The only thing you could see was the blood flying from all those bandits. They were dead in seconds. It was ungodly."

"Hiraishin no Jutsu?" the Hokage murmured, "but that's impossible. Only one man knew that technique…"

"I only saw him for a second. His hair was yellow, but it was his eyes that got me. They were like blue gem stones, but I couldn't tell if they were human or demon."

Kakashi put down the report and looked out his window. "Could it be?" he uttered, "could he be back."

Closing his eyes, Kakashi pondered the situation for a few minutes, hoping to be graced with the wisdom of the past Hokages who had sat in his chair. But there was no great epiphany or wise mysterious voice to guide him. Sighing, he reached underneath his desk and pressed a button, summoning an ANBU operative to his side. "Lord Hokage," said the masked warrior as he bowed. "Gather all the information we have on any mysterious acts of heroism for the past six months," the Hokage ordered. Acknowledging the order with a silent bow, the ANBU operative vanished, leaving a deeply worried Hokage to his thoughts.

"Could it really be him?"

A week later, Sakura stood before the Hokage, being briefed on a new mission to confirm the report of the technique that had supposedly died with the Fourth Hokage and to identify its wielder.

"As you know, the Fourth had a son. For fear of his son's safety, the Fourth had left instruction that the boy's lineage be kept a secret until he was ready to fend for himself. As one of Tsunade's final acts as Hokage, she divulged his lineage as well as his inheritance to the boy. That inheritance was a single scroll, which was said to contain the secrets of the Fourth Hokage's techniques. If the Hirasin no Jutsu exists, it must have come from that scroll. Do you understand the implications Sakura?"

Kakashi waited with bated breath as he watched his former pupil digest all the information that he had just presented, not knowing how she would react.

He knew of their relationship, the tragedy that had befallen them, and the terrible wound she still carried in her heart.

Sakura wanted to break down and cry, the weight of all her emotions nearly crumbling her will. She had prayed each night for the past ten years to heartless gods for some word that he was still alive. It had become a morose routine, a nightly ritual bathed in despair. "Please God, let me see him just once more."

And now he was alive – her prayers seemingly heard by the divine. Kakashi could see the raw emotions brewing in the not so young shinobi. So powerful was her emotion that it bled into him, as if the very air was saturated with her desire to be with him again. "Sakura?"

"Never again will I be weak!"

Those words thundered in Sakura's mind, a childhood promise that she made to herself after seeing Naruto lying in the hospital bed, critically wounded by the man that they had once called friend. She made a vow to be strong for them so that she wouldn't be the girl always watching them from behind. She was going to stand by them – stand by him no matter what. Feeling her resolve strengthening, Sakura lifted her gaze into Kakashi's exposed eye, letting him know that she was fine and that he could continue.

Acknowledging her with a nod of his head, Kakashi continued, "Your orders are to gather information, but not to make contact."

Sakura glared at him in response. "How could you ask me such a thing?" she growled, her fist clenched. Reason told her that Kakashi's order was sensible given the strategic implications of a potentially village-killing technique out in the wilderness, but her heart could not, would not accept that her love could ever pose a threat to the place he once called home. She would never spy on him as if he was an enemy of the village.

"First off, we don't even know if it's him. It could be someone else entirely. And even if it's him, then he's gone rogue, Sakura. There's no telling what he might do. For the good of the village, we must make sure that whoever it is, he does not pose a threat to us," replied Kakashi, trying to reason with the ill-tempered woman.

"How can you say that about him!" she yelled, slamming her fist down onto his chakra-enhanced desk, which was the only reason why it survived. Kakashi could only sigh, knowing that further argument would be pointless. The former apprentice to the Fifth was not a person to be denied. But he had to try, for her sake.

"He's not the same boy we knew," Kakashi lamented, "he may see you as an enemy." His words had struck true, like an arrow to her heart. She knew that the Hokage was right. Sakura, whose power was feared in all the hidden villages of the five great nations, could not help but shiver at the memory of him enraged.

Like that night long ago. She could still remember the terrible sight of his wrath, the look of murder in his eyes, eyes that were centered on her.

But even the fear of gruesome death could not dissuade Sakura from the mission. She had to see him again to show him how much he had meant to her, how much he still meant to her.

Sakura wanted to prove to him that she was someone worth loving again and that this time around, she would have the strength to walk by his side. It was this single obsession that had drove Sakura to devote her entire being into her training.

And her training did pay off. She was the Hidden Village's only one-man assault team. Sakura was sent in on missions that were too dangerous even for the ANBU. She had proven countless of times in battle that there was no enemy that she could not dispatch – save one.

But she would go to him nonetheless and accept whatever fate had in store for her. She looked into the Hokage's eye and without uttering a single word, told him all that he needed to know. And in a puff of smoke, she was gone, running towards the Land of Wave. Kakashi could only sigh, as he slouched in his chair, his eyelids drooping.

"She's going to be the death of me," he muttered as he pulled out his Icha Icha Paradise book, flipping to the page that he had bookmarked.

For months, she traveled the land, following clue after clue.

She would hear stories of a man always saving the day. A man with bright blonde hair and whisker marks. An old man told her that the blond man had saved him from a pack of ravenous wolves with a simple glance. "He just looked at them and they ran away yelping."

A young girl told her: "He was so cool. A ninja was about to kill my daddy, but he came and knocked them all out cold."

But as the days grew into weeks, Sakura began to despair. She had heard fantastic tales about a traveling hero, but came no closer to finding the man than when she had first begun her search.

Then one day, Sakura came across a small boy with the biggest grin on his face. "Why are you so happy?" she huffed, feeling dejected over her failure to find him. The boy, unaffected by her sour attitude, beamed, "a man by the river showed me how to walk on water. When my brother here about this, he'll be so jealous."

Sakura was struck dumb by the boy's words. After realizing the woman was crazy, the boy skipped away, whistling a happy little tune.

"Walking on water…" she whispered, "Could it be?" She dare not hope, fearing that another dead end would crush her spirits, but she could not simply turn away. Not when she was so close.

"Run you fool," Sakura screamed silently, trying to motivate the body into following her command.

It took a full minute before she was able to dash off towards the direction of the river. At first, her pace was measured, steady, but as she ran, thoughts of the golden haired boy began flooding her mind.

"Hey Sakura, you wanna go on a date with me."

"It's a promise of a life time."

"I don't ever go back on a promise. That's my ninja way."

"You really like Sasuke, don't you?"

She could still remember the hurt in his eyes as he uttered those words. It was as if he was finally accepting a terrible truth – a truth depriving him of all happiness. Then that forced smile of his, so full of torment and pain.

All thought of caution and reason had left her. There was only one thing left in Sakura's mind.

"Please let it be him!"

She ran, pumping all her chakra into her legs, forcing back the pain building in her lungs as the rapid infusion of oxygen began burning through the tissue.

"I just want to see his eyes again," she chanted over and over again in her head as she neared the river.

With one last explosion of chakra, she burst through the foliage that had lined the riverbank and landed hard in the shoal.

As she rose from her crouch position, her head darted side to side, scanning the terrain for any sign of her quarry. But before she could complete her scan, her eyes caught sight of a man, still crouching on the riverbank, looking intently at the surface of the water.

Sakura recognized him instantly.

The man stood up from his hunched position and stared directly into her eyes. "So you finally found me," he smirked, his expression revealing no emotion. Sakura's eyes widened, trembling with emotion.

But before she could respond, he was gone – only the ripples across the surface of the water marked where he stood.

She had no time to gasp before she felt the blade pierce her shoulder, her scream breaking the morning tranquility, the fish swimming nearby dispersing.

An instant later, Sakura was lifted into the air before she was slammed into the soft earth below, the air forced out of her lungs.

Gritting her teeth, bearing the pain, Sakura opened her eyes, wanting to see the killing blow. All she saw was the knife plunging fast into her chest, the blood spurting out in a long strand of crimson liquid.

Sakura felt the bile and blood filling her gullet, the indescribable pain in her chest beginning to numb. She lay there, gasping, clawing the soil beneath her hands. She was dying, but her only thoughts were of the boy she fell in love with. "I want to see his eyes one last time."

It was then, as if he was reading her mind, he looked down. Sakura could see the deep sadness in his eyes, the blue having lost its luster. He was straddling her body, his hand still gripping the blade protruding from her chest. She blushed.

"Of all things to be doing at a time like this," her inner voice raged, angered by the young woman's foolish concerns of intimacy.

The spasms hit her in crashing waves, her body slowly shutting down. He could see death taking hold of her. He also knew that as a shinobi, she would lash out at him and try to take him with her to wherever shinobi went after they die.

He closed his eyes, hoping for a clean blow. Perhaps a kunai to the temple he thought, but instead, he felt a warm touch against the back of his hand. He opened his eyes and found the woman he had just mortally wounded, staring back at him, smiling. Her face was drained of all color, her lips splattered with blood, but her visage seemed to glow.

"Love you…Na..ru..to."

Then she was gone.


End file.
